Why are Rabbits Always so Nervous?
by Fireflyleo
Summary: None of us knew how or why it happened. Belief rates were up and fear was at an all-time low. Easter had even come and gone with an impressive increase of success, so how on Earth did E. Aster Bunnymund end up shrunken down to the size of a household pet rabbit for the second time in just as many years?


Disclaimer: I do not own Rise of the Guardians or the Guardians of Childhood. They are the property of Dreamworks Animation Studios and William Joyce.

Author's Note: This is my contribution to the ROTG fandom. Just a little something I couldn't help but think about whenever I saw the movie. I hope you enjoy.

* * *

Why are Rabbits Always so Nervous?

None of us knew how or why it happened. Belief rates were up and fear was at an all-time low. Easter had even come and gone with an impressive increase of success the kids had be so determined to find eggs this year, and Bunny had provided, tripling the amount of googies he normally hid just for their enjoyment. The chocolate had been rich and delicious – I should know, I'd swiped some while Bunny had his back turned – and Bunny even decided to try something a little messier by hollowing out about a fourth of the eggs and filling them with brightly colored paper confetti – I swear Bunny was trying to copy one of my snowball fights what with the way the kids were cracking the eggs over each other's heads. Point is all was well and there was no sign whatsoever of Pitch Black causing trouble, so how on Earth did E. Aster Bunnymund end up shrunken down to the size of a household pet rabbit for the second time in just as many years?

"I said get out!" shouts the miniature guardian, his chest puffing so fast with his accelerated heart and respiration rate I'm afraid the rabbit will spontaneously begin to levitate like a hot air balloon or one of those floating ships the Victorians tried to make two centuries ago. It would be cute, really! If said bunny wasn't currently trying his damnedest to thump my eyes out of my skull.

"Okay, okay, I'll leave," I say trying to block the hits to my face with my hands, earning a few more scratches, and moving away from the table I found Bunny sitting on. The ungrateful little bastard…

No one had seen hide nor hair of the pooka since Easter's conclusion nearly a month ago. It was expected to a degree. North told me that it was quite common for Bunny to drift right into a long sleep once his season was over, but typically it only lasted a week and a half. After that time period had come and gone, Sandy had promptly announced that Bunny was awake though had been in a surprisingly foul temper when the sandman had tried to visit; the Warren had been on lock down, all entrance denied. One of the egg sentinels had even tried to roll the sandman over when he'd continued to poke around one of the rabbit holes after it had been sealed.

North had shrugged in response and mumbled something about chronic grouchiness and uptight rabbits while chewing on a cookie. I overheard the conversation by chance, having been staying at the pole more often than not during the warmer months, and couldn't help but hide a smirk at the thought that maybe it was time to visit Australia. Hey, the country/continent was about to go into its annual autumn season, anyway. I had an excuse to be there. Why not have a bit of fun along the way.

Upon getting there, however, I find that Sandy had most certainly not been over exaggerating. Every entrance I knew of to the Warren was sealed shut. No matter, I always liked a good challenge.

It took two weeks of miscalculated avalanches, blizzards, a nearly broken staff/neck, and a nasty run in with poison ivy and venomous snakes before I found out that all I had actually required was the assistance of a dingo… and a crocodile to keep said dingo away from a potentially sleeping rabbit, overgrown as he may be. Then, I was in the burrow, looking for Bunny, dodging egg sentinels and trying to be a well-behaved, concerned friend and fellow guardian, but when I found him what did all that effort leave me? With a 10 inch fuzz ball trying to fluff me to death, that's what! I'll probably laugh about it later. In the meantime though, looking into Bunny's angry, little, beady, green eyes, I need to figure out how to get the pooka out of its rabbit hole and to North's workshop before it smothered me into a second death.

"Suit yourself, you stubborn ball of fluff. I'm going."

"What did you just call me?"

I turned around to send a wry smirk his way.

"Did I stutter, dust bunny?"

"Alright, I'm kicking you out myself," growls Bunny, cracking his tiny rabbit fists as though they could do any real damage beside a few scratches, granted knowing Bunny, they would be nasty scratches. Only just as he jumps off the table I throw a snowball aimed directly for his belly and knocking him backwards into a desk lamp. Before this moment, I had no idea rabbits could howl… Nor did I know they could rebound quite that quickly as Bunnymund leapt from the floor and promptly latched himself onto the back of my neck, fisted paws beating a new drumbeat into my skull.

"Ahh! Knock it off!"

"Get outta my warren, you blighter!"

I stumble into one of the tunnels juggling staff, raging rabbit, and a small cluster of snowballs desperately trying to snowball the bite-sized terror over the head. Not that it did any good other than to piss him off further.

"I'm going, you bite-sized kangaroo!"

"Then get!"

Bunny jumps off my head, delivering a sharp kick to my frosty backside for good measure and making me stumble head over hills into a dugout hole Bunny used to store spare supplies.

"Now nick off!"

Covered in dirt and grass, I lift my head up to cough only to, incidentally, spy a decently sized rucksack sitting just beyond my left hand. That's when the idea occurs to me. And it's brilliant! Why had I not thought of such an easy solution before. I laugh, long and hard and loud enough to set Bunny's fur on end. …Annoyingly enough to drive the elder guardian's patience clean over a cliff to land in a splash of shark infested waters.

"That's it! I've had enough of you!"

I feel more than hear Bunny jump, no doubt aiming to land a punch on my head, giving me just enough time to snatch the bag up, twist around, and hold it open in front of my face to avoid being hit. Bunny slides into the open bag with a startled yelp, and the rucksack is then zipped shut and slung (gently?) over my shoulder.

"Alright, Bunny, I've got you. Off to North we go. Maybe he'll know how to get you back to normal. I hope he knows how to get you back to normal."

And so with a bag full of angry rabbit, I call the wind and take flight much to the protest and colorful cursing of a very miffed Easter Bunny. I just hope he doesn't throw up in the bag. Regurgitated carrots are not my favorite vegetable.

* * *

"You not looking so good, old friend."

"Naw, mate! I didn't notice."

North, who had been holding Bunny in front of his face with both hands, allows Bunny to drop to the floor when the rabbit starts to thrash wildly in his grip.

"But what could have caused it?" asks Tooth. "The globe is completely lit up."

Sandy looks up at her with a gold question mark hovering over his head.

"Is there a way to reverse it?" I ask. Since delivering Bunny to the pole, I've refused to leave the rafters lest the slightly frosted over bunny decide to exact revenge on being trapped in a sack and flown a good thousand and something kilometers to get to the North Pole. I chose now to descend, hovering near the control panel and as far away from the fireplace I can get without leaving the platform.

"I am having no idea," says North running a hand through his beard as he studies the riled up rabbit, currently so close to the fireplace I'm afraid his efforts to defrost his tail would result in an appendage of the rather more flaming variety. "But I would think with some time it go away of own accord, no? Yes? Sandy, what say you?"

The golden spirit pauses in fending off an elf from his eggnog to shrug sadly at the tallest guardian and begins making sand signs above his head while the elf took the opportunity to lap up as much of the beverage as possible. A symbol of a book and its pages being turned crops up.

"Ask Katherine? Sandy, you know she is off world."

("Who's Katherine?" I whisper to one of Tooth's fairies. "Another guardian. Mother Goose, essentially," came the squeaked answer.)

The sandman shakes his head with a scowl before pointing at them and making the symbol again. And again, and again and again as North keeps trying to guess what he's trying to say.

"Us and books… Us and reading… We read books… Oh! We do research to help Bunny!"

"That's perfect!" exclaims Tooth. "Then we can find out how to fix it and prevent it in the future."

Bunny's ear twitches, and then he hops his way over with a scowl and a near-violent waving of a paw.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, who said I needed help? I can take care of this on my own, thank you very much."

"Oh yeah, and just how long have you been itty bitty, cottontail?" I tease, hovering in the space above Bunny and scratching him just under the ear. The rabbit's foot starts to thump the before I'm viciously swatted away and hissed at.

"None of your business! Now if you'll excuse me."

Bunny taps a hind foot twice on the hardwood and disappears down a rabbit hole. However, before the hole had even fully closed, we hear a rabbit curse and a small child squeal, "Bunny!" at the top of her lungs.

"Was that…" starts Tooth.

"Sophie?" I finish, barely restraining myself.

I can the grin nearly splitting my face in two – the fairies are dizzy from the sight, and the laugh that spilt from my lips is loud enough to fill the entire workshop. Oh, this is too good.

"Right," speaks North, eyeing me with a look that said I would most certainly be back on the naughty list before the end of the week. "It would seem Bunny's tunnels are also on malfunction. Now might be a good time start research, no? Sandy, Tooth, come. To library!"

"And me?" I ask.

"You go rescue Bunny from excitable little girl before she yank little Bunny ears too hard."

I deflate a little before perking right back up. Hopefully, this'll prove entertaining.

* * *

And oh, it so does. Imagine, gliding into the Bennett house to find a flustered Jamie trying to wrestle Bunny away from his now four-year-old little sister who has the rabbit's left ear in a death grip. The little girl is screaming at the top of her lungs ("My Bunny!") while Jamie is trying really hard to keep from pulling too hard on the rabbit. Bunny, in question, does look to be in more pain from the girl's squealing than the actual tugging on his ear. Understandable, even my ears are starting to hurt. Where the heck is Mrs. Bennett? Anyway…

What makes the scene truly ADORABLE is the fact that apparently Sophie had had enough time to slip a bib and bonnet over Bunny's fluffy head, and it was this baby Bunny that Jaime was currently trying to rescue from a tea party set up.

"Sophie, that's the Easter Bunny! You can dress him up and make him drink fake tea."

"Bunny mine!"

Why didn't I think to bring a camera?

"Uh, kids? Kids! As much as I love been fought over…"

As least that's what I was thinking until Abbey, the Bennett's pet greyhound, starts growling from the open door at the lace clad rabbit. Jamie lets go of Bunny in favor of trying to pacify Abbey, and Sofie takes the opportunity to pull the bunny backwards, giggling as she goes while I step fully into the room from my place by the window and decide a few snowflakes might inspire the child to loosen her hold on Bunny.

"Sophie," I coo at her. "You have to be careful with tiny animals."

"Oh, rack off!"

Sophie giggles in the small flurry of snow while her brother turns to look at what is now entertaining his sister.

"Jack!"

"Hiya, Jamie!"

The boy's eyes light up in delight before turning to abrupt horror as Abbey dodges around him barking and growling for Bunny, who wiggles out of Sophie's grip to start bouncing around the room trying to evade the dog. Jamie flails his arms, Sophie keeps on giggling, Bunny is not-quite-cursing up a storm as Abbey's teeth come a little too close for comfort, and I swoop in, scoop up the rabbit and retreat to the ceiling.

Abbey whimpers as though her favorite chew toy was just taken away from her.

"Put me down, blighter!"

"Are you sure about that?"

Abbey licks her chops, and Bunny buries himself in the folds of my sweater. Jamie hurries over to get a firm hold around the dog's collar – not that Jack thinks he'll be able to hold on to the greyhound very well if she really wants to get at the rabbit, but it's the thought that counts.

"Jack, what happened to him? Are kids not believing again?"

"No, Jamie, nothing like that. We're not exactly sure why the ole' grump is bite-sized at the moment, but we're trying to fix him."

Bunny growls something I can't quite make out into my chest. I think it has to do with the cold or maybe something the kids don't need to hear anyway. More likely the later.

"But," I continue. "I got to get this little guy back to the Pole."

More grumbling from the rabbit as I return to the window where Sophie is still playing with the snowflakes. I carefully pull the bib and bonnet off of Bunny, returning them to the little girl's tea set up and bend down so she can say "bye, bye, Bunny," to Aster who gives her a little nudge with his nose, calling her an ankle-biter fondly despite the dress up party.

Jamie comes to get a hold of his sister before she can try to jump out the window with us, giving Bunny and me a wave and making them promise they would stop by once Bunny was back to normal. Not a problem for me. I'll make sure to drag Bunny along, amiable or not.

And then we're out of the house and up in the sky, Bunny already screaming expletives at me for flying too damn fast and for it being too damn cold up here. I roll my eyes and adjust my hold on him so that he's halfway tucked into the pocket of my sweater and pressed tight to my torso.

"I'm not going to drop you, cottontail."

"Yeah, well, at least on North's confounded sleigh there's something under my feet."

I half-laugh, half-sigh at that declaration. I can't blame Bunny, really. Not for being scared of heights or flying or for hating the cold of higher altitudes. Hello! Spirit of Springtime. The only time Bunny's feet ever leave the ground is when he's mid jump, and that takes, what 2 seconds? 4 for his highest feats? Never mind the fact that the majority of magic was linked to the Earth itself. Disconnecting from it for too long could very well be the equivalent of torture for the pooka, and that I can understand. I'm an elemental of nature. To me, being inside for extended periods of time is like being locked in a dark basement. Total sensory deprivation. It hurts if I think about it too long, but that's just why I'm more inclined to start pulling pranks when I'm indoors. It provides a distraction. Helps the discomfort.

Ah, yes! Distraction!

"Just relax, will you? Have some fun, maybe. You probably overworked yourself into this state in the first place."

"I did not overwork myself."

"Mhmm, look me in the eye and say that again," I say, looking down at him. He scowls and his nose twitches at me.

"Thought so."

I shift my weight and make a small dive to get close to the ground. Aster makes a small keening sound at the abrupt descent. We're passing through a forest somewhere over Canada. It's just about sunset, and seeing as spring is in full swing, there are plenty of animals and blooms shuffling around in the dying light. I spy a patch of baby ducklings bathing with their mother in a pond, a few rabbits dart back and forth along the forest floor, baby birds chirp excitedly as their parents return to the nest for the night. I even find a burrow of fox kits creeping out of their den for the first time, carefully guarded by their mother as they are only just getting on their feet.

"Bunny, look around. It's springtime."

Bunny's response is hesitant and, MIM, does the rabbit shake a terrible lot when he's this small, but eventually, as slowly as it takes, the spirit lifts his head out of the burrow he's made in my sweatshirt, green eyes flying wide as we pass over a field of flowers dusted in soft golden hues from the setting sun.

The forest thins into a human town where they can see a group of kids polishing off the last of their Easter spoils. Loud laughter rings through the air as an older boy allows a small toddler the opportunity to crack an egg over his head by bending to greet the child. A mama cat cleans off one of her kittens with only a mother's fervor. The poor tyke must have fallen into a patch of mud. Some of the trees have already begun to bear fruit, and I snag an apple off an apple tree before snow starts to pepper the ground again. I can't help but feel more than a little victorious as Aster decides to take a nibble out of the fruit in my hand.

Different visions greet us as the wind carries us further north and the sunsets below the horizon. Sandman's dreamsand starts to tendril through the air making its way into the imaginations of sleeping children and a few tired adults. And finally, after hours of flying, the tension drifts out of Aster's tiny body like a wrath to be carried off by the wind in a different direction from where we are heading, and all the stress over Easter, all the frustration at being tiny, and all the irritation at being bothered by a group of annoying friends trying to help seeps out of him leaving a very tired but content Bunny in their wake.

Though, he still finds it in him to complain about the cold. I can't really blame him for it, but he snuggles into my sweater anyway, his eyes falling shut. Now I can see why all the kids called him cute and cuddly last year.

He stays like that for a long while, eyes closed and breathing gently into my shirt. So long, in fact, that I start to believe he'd drifted off. While he's a asleep and looking oh, so terribly cute, I sneak a quick nuzzle to the top of his head, or at least that's what I planned to do because I thought he was sound asleep. It startles me a little when his voice reaches my ear.

"Thanks, Jack. I didn't know how much I needed a proper breather."

"Anytime, kangaroo. Anytime."

There's a gruff huff as I ruffle the fur at the top of his head.

"You're still a right irresponsible blighter!"

I laugh, far too familiar with the accusation to care.

"I wouldn't try to be anything else."

"Just stay the way you are, Frostbite. Maybe it'll rub off."

"Doubtful, but thankfully I'll always be around to put more fun in your life."

That gets Bunny laughing. It's a nice sound. Perhaps I'll work on trying to hear it more often. The wind encourages a few more spins out of me, much to my cargo's screeching delight, and I can just see the northern lights begin to streak across the sky. North's workshop can't be too far away is the last thing I think before something rather strange and highly alarming starts to occur under my arm.

Bunny is twitching.

Twitching so hard in fact, I have to wonder if he's having a seizure for a second before I realize that, no he's not actually twitching, he just growing. Rapidly growing. To a size that neither I nor Wind can carry. I just don't know which of us will give out first.

"Oh, Struth!"

Turns out Wind did, and we plummet towards the snow-clad Earth at gravity's whole-hearted insistence, passing night owls, tree branches, and falling leaves in the process. Now I'm well accustomed to falling through trees, but when you have a 6 foot tall rabbit attached to you… I've got to say, it's quite a different experience. Thank the moon we land in a reasonably soft snow bank. Of course, I landed on a reasonably softer Bunnymund, so I shouldn't be the one making comparisons.

"That is the last time I let you or North take me anywhere, I bloody swear it!"

Oh, good. He appears to be just fine.

"Aw, come on. Don't be like that, Bunny."

"Get off me, you bloody show pony."

I do, chuckling under my breath.

"You have to admit you had at least a little bit of fun."

"I don't have to admit to anything."

"Sure… Deny, deny, deny."

"Rack off."

Bunny pulls himself out of the snow and shakes the remaining crystals out of his fur. His eyebrows are drawn together and he wraps his arms around his chest, already cold, as he uses his hind legs to start digging into the snow to look for dirt to open one of his tunnels, no doubt. I float a few feet away before planting my staff into the ground and leaning against it and taking a bite out of my apple.

"You know just because your life-size again doesn't mean you can go back to being mean."

"I don't recall ever being nice to you in the first place."

"Whatever, Kangaroo. Your welcome."

He pauses in his digging, quirks an ear at me before turning to face me.

"And what exactly am I supposed to be thankful for? You just dropped me Moon knows how many kilometers out of the sky into a bloody snowdrift."

"For the record, it was an accident and it was _your_ weight that had us dropping out of the sky like that. But the reason you should be thanking me is because I, quite frankly, turned you back to normal."

"Excuse me?"

"You stressed yourself the size of a teddy bear. You seriously need to learn restraint when it comes to your work before you end up bite-sized permanently. All I did was give you a chance to enjoy the so-called fruits of your labor."

"Fruits of my labor?"

I shrug.

"You're the bringer of spring and hope aren't you? Seems a shame to me that all you usually do is hide your eggs, watch the egg hunts, and then tuck yourself back away in your warren until next year. Don't you want to actually see the effect springtime has on people, plants, and animals? Hell, I'd have drowned myself again a long time ago if all I ever did was bring down the snow and never bothered to enjoy the kids playing in it. It's part of enjoying your job. You might not be depressed, but burn-out manifests in all different shapes and forms."

Bunny sits stunned across from me, jaw partially open and gapped at the fact that I, Jack Frost, bane of hard-work and deadlines and friend of snowballs and fun times, had just given E. Aster Bunnymund a lecture. Well, that was a speech I had not been planning to make. Course, in my humble opinion, it was still a damn good one, but… Dear Moon, I just gave the Easter Bunny a lecture on how he should handle his work when I'm the one who has succeeded in ruining his holiday not once but twice, maybe three times if you count that one time I let a snowstorm build around Burgess, and he is not responding. Wait, no… his eye is twitching. …Rather violently. Oh, and he's walking my way. Uh oh… I close my eyes and brace myself.

"Don't hit me, I'm human."

But when no such blow comes, I hesitantly peek an eye open. He's looking at me rather pensively. No signs of intended violence or even anger in his gaze. He so close though his nose is touching my forehead and when he sniffs at me, I can feel the air rushing into his nostrils. His right ear twitches.

"You know what, mate?"

My eyebrows raise at the question with a "huh," and he touches his nose to my brow. A light, affectionate nudge that warms the area and has my cheeks frosting over in embarrassment before his pulls back and leans down to look me straight in the eye a moment before speaking.

"I think you've got a right point."

And he promptly hops backwards, taps his foot twice on the ground he revealed, and disappeared down the rabbit hole leaving a single bloom in his wake.

It takes me a couple blinks to wipe the stupid off my face and remind myself that I should probably head to North's to tell them Aster is back to normal. It takes an embarrassing amount of time later as I'm standing the workshop to notice that Bunny, with all his ninja skill, didn't just bump me with his nose. No!

He stole my apple.

Owari


End file.
